Entry 8.

So I've decided to begin with one of the easier genres to write music for- romance. That's right, sappy lovey dovey music that could be played while watching the last scene in Breakfast at Tiffany's. The clip, in total, is about 3 minutes long...So I might not end up using the entire thing. In this clip, my music will be replacing "Moon River." A classic. That's all fine and well, though, but my piece, despite the fact that it has to be discintively romantic, has to have something 'different' about it. I haven't exactly decided what that's going to be yet...I'm used to writing pieces that could pass for film scores, so it'll be strange to have to stray from that habit.

Romance movie music...It's slow, it's full of strings, it's legato. I've already got about 30 seconds of music written, so I've got a motif or two to play around with. The instrumentation's pretty simple- I've decided on violin, cello, timpani and piano rather than trombone, cello and piano. Now for the tweaking part. First I have to find the essence of romantic music...Lots of appropriately placed dynamics, (so I could mess them around a bit, make insignificant parts loud and the nice parts insanely soft) imitation in the parts, (I could take this to an extreme) graceful curves in the piece (I could make it as disjunct as all heck) and it's generally smoothe and legato (I could put in abrupt stops and change the articulations.) So I've got lots of things I could do...But what do I want to do?

Since romantic music generally has good symmetry and long, flowing phrases, I've decided to see just how long I can make one line go on for...Make it a never-ending kind of rambling 'I love you I love you I love you I love you' kind of thing, and even use the natural rhythm for those words in the piece for effect. So there's one thing- this whole section will be one long, rambly line, simply stating the motif over and over until the listeners are as sick of that rhythm as they are of cheesy romance films. Seriously, there are a lot of them out there, and they all end the same way. Since each portion of my piece can only be so long, I can’t go on for too long with the same motif, so I need another way to tweak it. There are some unexpected turns in the harmony, but even still, it sounds fairly typical of a romantic piece. My natural tendancy is to leave it like that, because I really like composing movie music, but I have to tweak this so it doesn’t sound so…Cliché. Therefore the cello and violin will be plucking. Where they’d normally be playing nice, long bows, they’re going to pluck. The piano will still have the legato melody, and its dynamics will have to be compromised so that it doesn’t swamp out the strings, but I’m keeping the timpani in at a good solid dynamic. I don’t think the timpani are very typical of this kind of music anyway, so there, I’ve un-cliché’d this piece. And it’s done! Well, this part, anyway, and playing the clip from Breakfast at Tiffany’s behind it really adds to the effect, and somehow, what I wrote seems to fit the movie quite well, ending at a very appropriate place, 1:06 into the clip. Woot! This part won’t be the first part of my piece…I’m thinking action first (Lord of the Rings) followed by romance (Breakfast at Tiffany’s) then cult film (Reservoir Dogs) followed by Horror (The Shining) and ended with drama (American History X) It should be epic!

Entry 7.

…And now back into the tonal realm…Right? Well, we do have to put some kind of a spin on this whole cliché thing. I have to keep telling myself that we’re not just writing an example of a cliché, but taking a cliché and adding to it just to change it enough so that it’s still recognizable, though different at the same time. I’ve decided to write a medley of movie themes based on different genres. I’ve decided to toy around with taking a few scenes from actual movies and composing a clip of music to go along with it, just to get a taste of what film composing might be like. If you’re reading this, Clark, and don’t want me to do this, feel free to say so. The pieces I compose will have no traces of the film’s actual score in it, so everything will be original. The film clips will be purely to work out a bit of timing and inspiration.
As for genres…I’ve put together a bit of a list, just to get started.
- Horror/slasher/thriller ***
- Mystery *
- Romance ***
- Action **
- Comedy *
- Western ***
- Cartoon *
- Cult film ***
- Martial arts **
- Musical *
- Science fiction **
- Comic hero *
- War ***
- Drama ***
The stars indicate the likelihood of each genre being in my composition, though I’ll probably think of other genres to add to this list and change my list of preferences a few times before/during the composition process. So far, it looks as though I’ll be doing a medley composed of horror, romance, western, cult film, war and drama based themes.
I’ve put a bit of thought into the instrumentation, but haven’t come to any conclusions yet. Since there will be three performers, and since most movie music is fairly dense in texture, I’ve decided that no matter what, the use of piano in this composition will be a constant. A good idea would be to put a bass instrument and a treble instrument in there as well, so I’m leaning toward bass (possibly electric bass, though I’m not sure yet) or cello and some type of a wind instrument for the upper voice. I’d like to compose for violin, but I’d really rather have only one stringed instrument for this one. Flute might be neat, since it, in my opinion, sounds good in both its high and low registers and is fairly versatile. My only worries would be if it would be drowned out by the cello and piano…(Yes, I just decided that I’m using cello) Maybe trumpet would be a better idea, though (please don’t kill me, Heidi!) I’m not very partial to that particular instrument. I might go for trombone, because it can be both loud and ominous and soft and haunting.
Piano, cello and trombone it is, then. A slightly strange combination, but I think it might work out. I’ll toy around with this a bit before I make any commitments.
Films! I almost forgot- I’ve come up with a few ideas for which films to use for each genre. Well, not each genre, just the ones I’m more likely to use. Thanks to the book “501 Must-See Movies,” I’ve got LOTS of options.


Horror:
- Psycho *
- The Birds *
- Night of the Living Dead **
- Carrie ***
- The Shining ***


Romance:
- Gone with the Wind *
- Casablanca *
- Breakfast at Tiffany’s ***
- Love Story **
- Pretty Woman *

Action:
- Spartacus *
- Indiana Jones, Raiders of the Lost Ark ***
- Die Hard *
- Braveheart ***
- Gladiator **

Western:
- Dances with Wolves **
- The Good, The Bad and the Ugly *
- The Postman *
- Davy Crockett *

Cult/independant Films:
- Scarface *
- Clockwork Orange *
- Donnie Darko ***
- Reservoir Dogs ***
- Pulp Fiction *
- Elephant **
- Requiem for a Dream ***
- Fight Club ***
- Boondock Saints *
-

Drama:
- American History X ***
- 25th Hour ***
- The Graduate *
- One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest **
- Fatal Attraction *
- The Shawshank redemption *
- American Beauty ***

War:
- The Great Escape *
- M*A*S*H *
- Apocalypse Now ***
- Schindler’s List *
- Saving Private Ryan *

After going through the list of movies I made up, I’ve decided to use the following genres and if I’ve got too many, then maybe cut from them…But they’ll be the foundation for this piece: horror, romance, cult/indie, drama and possibly action. There’s a pretty good selection there, though I’ll definitely have to separate drama and cult/indie and put western, romance and horror in between them, because those first three genres could have similar sounding sections. Horror, romance and action are very disctinctive too, so they shouldn’t prove to be too much of a problem. I’ve narrowed down my movie choices too.

Horror: Carrie or Shining (Go Stephen King!)
Drama: American History X, 25th Hour (Yes, Edward Norton is my favourite actor) or American Beauty
Romance: Definitely Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Cult/Indie: Requiem for a Dream, Fight Club, Reservoir Dogs or Donnie Darko. Probably one of the first three.
Action: Spartacus, Gladiator, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers or Braveheart.

As for movie scenes…

Carrie: The ending scene as she burns everything down.
The Shining: When Jack Nicholson cracks and does the “Heeeeeere’s Johnny!” thing.
American History X: Ending scene. If I can watch it without crying.
25th Hour: Final scene
American Beauty: final scene as well…I’m noticing a trend here
Breakfast at Tiffany’s: Once again…The ending.
Requiem for a Dream: …The ending…
Fight Club: Undecided. Either the ending, or the realization.
Reservoir Dogs: I’m tempted to do the gasoline and ear scene, though I think I like “Stuck in the Middle with You” in that scene too much to want to change it…Maybe the showdown between Mr. Pink and Mr. White, or one of the action scenes.
Donnie Darko: Not too sure…Though it’d be cool if it involved Frank the bunny.
Spartacus: Not sure…It’s been a while since I’ve seen it.
Gladiator: One of the arena scenes
Lord of the Rings: The battle at Helm’s Deep
Braveheart: battle scene


I’ve looked into finding some of the scenes on youtube too…For those of you who haven’t seen these movies and don’t want the endings spoiled, I’d suggest you not watch these videos, because they’re kind of a giveaway of the endings and such.

Carrie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i342kN_gNlw&feature=related
The Shining: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMoEWx9w2ag&feature=related
American History X: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPjJtdqK7UM&feature=related
25th Hour: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlBBixM2umw
American Beauty: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yH_CfkNUC_g&feature=related
Breakfast at Tiffany’s: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTJu9VY1d6M
Requiem for a Dream: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuzNohk5cYw
Fight Club: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHLYdqihlkA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbTIvu34uz0&feature=related
Reservoir Dogs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTf2En-7LhY
Lord of the Rings: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSucQvMTo-M

So this is how I brainstorm…And end up with 4 pages of stuff for a blog entry. At least I’ve got the basics planned out!

Jess

Entry 6.

Now comes the nitty gritty part of composition…The dreaded editing. This means going through, tweaking all the little notes I don’t like and adding in enough road mapping so that the performers know what I want without having to guess…

I’d like to start off with a rather amusing discovery of mine…If you change the meter without specifying how many bars you want to be in that specific meter, it will convert the WHOLE PIECE into the meter and you’ll be left with one heck of a screw up. I’d also like to thank the creators of Finale for allowing me to click the ‘undo’ button about 50 times in order to fix said error.

Looking back now, having finished the editing in my first piece, it wasn’t all that hard. Some things I changed just because I didn’t like the aimlessness in the melody, and other things were just menial accents and such that had to be added in. I added a bit to the middle and another bar to the end just because I wanted this piece to end on a question rather than a statement, which give it a good reason to go into the next piece. It’s still a very short piece, but I don’t think we’re being expected to compose stuff like Brahms or Beethoven yet…Which is nice. It would be neat to have to write something like a symphony, though I think it’d be quite a task.

The second piece I had already edited, so I just tweaked a few things here and there, adding a different ending to it so that this piece ended differently than the first. The first piece won’t segue into the second, but there’ll be a more prominent ending to the second piece as compared to the first, which ends with an open question.

The third piece was also more or less edited last weekend as well, so I only had to change a few things here and there, tweak a few rhythms and especially dynamics. I went dynamic happy in the piano, dividing the left and right hand by dynamics…The right hand, in the middle section, is primarily p, while the left hand is f and obnoxious. I kept the ending the same since it has the Dies Irae Dies Illa theme in the left hand, which I quite like. I changed the name to ‘Filosophy,’ because I wanted to maintain the F theme in the titles, and ‘Inebriation’ just didn’t seem to fit anymore. It sounds more like a ‘Philosophy’ anyway just with terrible spelling.

Well, there you have it. Now I just have to do my programme notes, ‘bind’ this thing, (which could be interesting…I don’t know if I have any binding things in my room, so I may have to venture to the square.) print it out and voila! Finito!

Jess

Entry 5.

This could be fun. Or completely and utterly frustrating but I’m thinking positive…I’m thankful now that I wrote down a lot of the things I should work on with each of the three pieces, because that way I have a goal to go for, and notes on things which need to be tweaked in each piece.

What I find really interesting is that upon listening to the pieces all in a row, it’s amazing to see the difference in them, and the maturity, even though they’ve been written within a few days, maybe a week of each other. Maybe I’m just being subjective, but I really do find that the later two compositions have a lot more in them than the first one, and the last one definitely has a lot more in it than the second and first both. I’m not sure if this was just a fluke or if I was actually beginning to find my niche in the world of atonal music. If I continue to ‘think positive,’ I’d say yes, I have become a great deal more comfortable writing atonal music after all the time I’ve spent composing these three pieces and writing about them along the way. Or I could be pessimistic as per usual and say that it’s simply by chance that my pieces ended up progressing in this way.

Anywho, back to more productivity and less pessimism. Looking at ‘Floss,’ my first piece I really feel very little identification with what I have down on the page. Reading my blog entry again and listening to the piece over again clears some things up, though I really find it hard to identify with this piece, as though I didn’t write it at all. It simply lacks the ambition and feeling I wanted it to have…In short, it’s very dry and thin, though when I say ‘thin’ I don’t necessarily mean texture wise. It feels rather flat and bland, which isn’t what I want in any of my pieces unless I’m actually trying to write a doormat type of piece. I’m going through it now and fixing a few things, making the articulations clearer and adding rhythms into the beginning and end where the clarinetist blows air through the clarinet without actually making a pitch…And I’m rather proud of myself for figuring out how to do that on Finale. You have to understand that I’m the type of person who does not get technology whatsoever. I moved some notes around too, mostly in the clarinet in the beginning and in the piano and clarinet both in the middle section.

‘Frost’ was a lot easier to fix. I listened to it several times and decided that only a few places needed some note adjustment, though mostly I had to focus on dynamics and articulations, using more descriptive words throughout the piece to make it clearer exactly what type of sound I want. This piece is a great deal different than the first and in many ways, so I’m trying to make it seem even more separate, not out of my dislike for ‘Floss’ but simply because I’d like each of the three movements to have their own character, each differing vastly from the last.

And then ‘Inebriation.’ Because I like it so much, I’ve decided to add more to the development section so that it goes on a bit longer than it had before. As a result, it is 16 bars longer, which satisfies me, at least for now. This one is the easiest to work with, as the melodic materiel is a bit less complex and easier to write. I think it is this change in complexity which makes this piece stand out from the others, which are rhythmically more intricate and melodically more dynamic.

OH- something I forgot to mention earlier, and just remembered now. I borrowed the ‘dies irae’ theme in this piece for the very ending…If you look at the first beat in the left hand of the piano for the last seven bars, you’ll see the ‘dies irae dies illa.’ This I kept in the piece, simply because I think it’s neat, and I added it in when I first wrote the piece because it was after 4:00 in the morning, and it felt like the right thing to do.

Well, that’s it for now. I’ll go through the pieces again, taking note of what I think I’ve missed in this round of editing and tweaking things yet again.

This job just never ends.

Jess

Entry 4.

This week’s piece, presuming it ends as well as it is going right now (I’m about one page into it as things stand) will be my favourite out of all three of them. It was the hardest to begin, but I began by writing about 8 bars of piano before I even started working on the clarinet part…I know that this would probably earn me a sound rap across the wrist, but I simply wanted to get a feel for the piano part before I went all clarinet-crazy. Piano comes to me a lot easier than clarinet does anyway, seeing as clarinet is a transposing instrument…And transposition is my enemy. But thanks to Finale and its ability to play back everything I’ve clicked into the staff on the page, I’m getting by without too much tooth-pulling.

It’s definitely a strange piece, and so far it sounds just about as tired as I feel. I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing yet, but the more I listen to it, the more tired I feel, and the more tired I feel the more the piece takes on this dismal character. I decided halfway through composing the second piece that I was going to name this one ‘Inebriation,’ simply because I felt a piece that sounded as though it was composed after a ten-day drinking binge would be a good way to end a three piece composition thing. I’m still not sure what to call this work as a whole- it’s not a sonata, it’s not a concerto…It’s just a thing, right now, I guess. Maybe I’ll invent a term for it that’ll be used 100 years after I’m dead, that sounds like a good plan.

I think I might be getting a bit tonal with this one…It sounds more like a tonal piece with some elements of atonality rather than an atonal piece with hints of tonality…Uh oh. I’ll tweak that…

I like the development section in contrast to the primary section of the piece, which is fairly lazy and rhythmically slow, and though the development section isn’t much faster rhythm-wise, it introduces a slightly different tone, though the overall tone is still fairly negative…

Why can’t I write a nice, happy atonal piece? Everything I write seems to be fraught with angst or some type of frustration. I guess that’s simply because of the dissonances I use, because I know some atonal stuff is actually quite beautiful and peaceful. That should definitely be my next challenge- write an atonal piece which is beautiful and peaceful. Right now I’m perfectly happy writing angry stuff, it’s a good way to relieve stress.

Well, it’s 4:04 in the morning. I have to say, this is my favourite piece I’ve written out of the three, so maybe Robbie’s technique works…Though I’m not sure how much I’ll adore myself for staying up this late working on a piece by the time class rolls around today…